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Beachwood City Council on Monday approved a new policy that limits when Mayor Merle Gorden, pictured, can dine on the taxpayers' dime.File photo

BEACHWOOD, Ohio – Beachwood
City Council has set limits on when Mayor Merle Gorden and other city officials
can dine on the taxpayers' dime, after a public outcry.

Beachwood residents roared
about Gorden's business and lunch expenses after The Plain Dealer and
cleveland.com reported he had racked up an $18,000 food tab since December
2010. So City Council on Monday passed its first boundaries for the mayor's
meals, allowing him to charge taxpayers for meals only when he's traveling on
city business, working at city events, attending government conferences,
leading staff meetings, negotiating employee contracts, meeting with government
officials about city business or meeting with business executives about
economic development.

Read the policy below.

"Outside of those
specific instances, meal purchases are no longer allowed," according to
Councilman James Pasch, who said the goal is to have city business conducted at
City Hall, not at restaurants.

Receipts must be provided,
and specific business must be noted.

"Each city-paid meal will
stand on its own as there will be public disclosure regarding the reason for the
meal, who was in attendance and the location of the meal," said President Fred
Goodman, adding the city does not pay for alcohol or
entertainment.

"I can promise you that
you are not going to see those same types of bills that you saw in the
past," Councilman Martin Horwitz said in an interview. "We tightened
up what the money can be spent on and eliminated that problem."

Horwitz and the other four
Council members at Monday night's meeting voted in favor of the new policy. Mel
Jacobs and Alec Isaacson were absent.

Gorden had been criticized
for using the city credit card to pay for meals with his secretary, other
co-workers and business and civic leaders, which Gorden said contributed to the
city's success. The policy does not specifically outlaw such meals.

The policy limits employee
appreciation dinners and lunches to twice per year. It also states the city
will pay for dinners for the mayor, Council members and other city employees on
nights when consecutive meetings are held.

Horwitz – who in March
ignited a firestorm when he said the mayor paid for his wife's meal with the
city credit card and recanted his story a day later after a meeting at City Hall -
said members never considered putting a cap on spending. Talk of a limit only
came up recently in the media, he said.

"There was never a
concern about spending limits," Horwitz said. "The citizens raised
concerns about the mayor taking city vendors and other people the city was
doing business with out for breakfast, lunch or dinner; or that the city was
paying for meals for city employees. And we addressed that with this policy."

"My view is that Council
members can provide for themselves," Wachter said last month. He was not
at the April 21 meeting, when Council passed the second reading.

Wachter could not be reached
to explain why he changed his vote, but last month he said, "I'm voting
'no' because I want to keep the conversation going."

Beachwood Council members
ordered soup and sandwiches from a local deli during meetings approximately
five times last year, according to Goodman. It is unclear how
much the meals cost.

Brecksville City Council
orders food before meetings twice a month, and spent $2,506 in taxpayer money
on meals in 2012, according to municipal records. Cleveland Heights City
Council eats every week and budgeted $12,000 for meals last year, according to
Finance Director Tom Raguz.

"If we ate $12,000 worth
of food that would be a lot, but Council meals are just a small part of this,"
Horwitz said. "The citizens told us we needed to look at our practices and
we did that. We tightened things up and created a policy."

Council on Monday also passed
a separate ordinance reducing from $30,000 to $7,500 the limit city officials
can spend to attend charity events each year. They may spend up to $150 per
event. The city typically spends $8,000 a year, Finance Director David Pfaff
said in March.

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